


feels like we only go backwards

by wekea



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, background 2won, background joohyuk, more rom than com but the com is present, this is basically a romcom, trans wonhee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-09-25 02:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekea/pseuds/wekea
Summary: Kihyun didn't forget him, he just forgot his name.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LikeSatellites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeSatellites/gifts).



> title from the song by tame impala  
> for my beautiful girl, who is always the right way around no matter which direction she's facing

Shit. Damn. Fuck and balls.

For some reason that was all he could think, the rhythm stuck in his head like a catchy lyric in a pop song. ( _One, two, one-two-three_.) Shit. Damn. Fuck and balls.

His socks were still upsettingly damp from when he'd run into the surf last night like a goddamn idiot, two too many beers and one too many rejections and at least five sheets to the wind, getting sand in his shoes and saltwater in his socks. They squeaked when he shoved his feet into his black chucks— wet canvas and wet cotton stuck with so much friction that just the feel of it made his hangover headache ring in his ears— and the laces left angry red lines on his fingers as he fumbled to tie up his shoes.

There was water on the linoleum floor of the entryway and he almost slipped when he stood up, but he caught himself just in time to hear the sound of a key turning in a lock.

The front door opened. He froze and held his breath but it didn't make him invisible, so when Jooheon saw him he blinked and said, "Kihyun?"

"No," Kihyun said. "Nope. I dunno." He wasn't sure how he got past Jooheon but it was somehow. "Dunno! I dunno." He thumped down the stairs to the parking lot, which was tragically devoid of his goddamn car. "I was younger then. I have to go."

Shit. Damn. Fuck and balls.

Kihyun was halfway to the bus stop before he remembered to be curious why Jooheon had a key to the flat he'd woken up in, but then he thought about it for a second and decided that he was too hungover to think about it. Or anything, for that matter.

 

* * *

[min]  
Hey Ki  
Hey did you go home with somebody?  
If you're dead can I have your corpse?

[kihyun]  
I'm donating my body to science  
If they even want it after what I've done to it

[min]  
lmao like you've ever done anthioh my god  
Was it LSD

[kihyun]  
NO.  
Oh my God

[min]  
Spoilsport  
But dude for real are you good?  
I lost track of you last night

[kihyun]  
Yah I'm fine  
Could you come pick me up please

[min]  
Not to be, like, super duper weird,  
but when the FUCK did you start saying please

[kihyun]  
Don't do this just come pick me up

[min]  
What's the magic word, pod person who has stolen my best friend

[kihyun]  
I saw Jooheon a minute ago and if you come pick me up I'll tell you what he was wearing

[min]  
In the car now turn ur location on

* * *

 

"Okay so lemme get this straight," Minhyuk said, slopping a stick of thick french toast around in the reservoir of maple syrup he'd collected on his plate. "You hit up that girl, right?"

"I didn't ‘hit up’ anybody." Kihyun bent over the table and might have pressed his forehead to the cool formica if he didn't know exactly where this table had been. (It had been here, in the diner, for years. _Tourists_ ate here.) "I asked Yeojoo if I could have her number, I don't know what constitutes 'hitting up' in this context but I don't think it's that."

"Okay so you whatevered that girl," Minhyuk amended through a mouthful of fried bread. "Yeojoo. And?"

"She gave it to me," Kihyun replied, "and then told me she had a girlfriend, but that I seemed nice."

Minhyuk paused in the middle of a chew. "Well," he said after a moment. "You don't want to date her anyway, if she thinks you seem nice she's got pretty bad taste in people."

Kihyun poked the back of Minhyuk's hand with his fork in a spurt of annoyance, but really he was mostly relieved. As long as Minhyuk was making fun of him things were fine. "Asshole."

Minhyuk snatched up his knife and fork and flashed them like dual-wield daggers. “I will end you, boy! Don’t think I won’t!”

"Okay, all right, let's not do this. I've barely touched my hashbrowns, can I at least eat my hashbrowns before my grisly demise?"

"I need you alive so you can tell me why I picked you up right by the university off-campus housing," Minhyuk said, and smiled. He set down his fork, then he set down his knife, then he threaded his fingers together and leaned forward like a principal who's about to tell you you're thisclose to being expelled and will, most importantly, _enjoy_ doing so. "So, Kihyun. My friend. My brother. My partner in crime."

"None of those are accurate," Kihyun said. If he put enough hashbrowns in his mouth maybe he'd choke and die and never have to talk about— about anything, and certainly not to Minhyuk of all people. (If he were honest with himself he'd have to admit that he'd known from the beginning that getting a ride from Minhyuk meant also getting questioned to within an inch of his life, but he was only interested in brutal honesty when it was directed at other people so he didn't admit this at all.)

"Whatever. I know where you live." Minhyuk licked a stripe of butter off one thumb. "Tell me everything or I drive you to a bridge and drop you off the side."

"I got drunk," Kihyun said.

Minhyuk blinked, long and slow like a cautiously contented cat. "... And?"

"And that's it. I got drunk. The end."

"I'm not even going to let you pick the bridge I push you off of."

"So, like, you know how I spent summers here when I was a kid?" Kihyun stuttered out. "You know, the— the beach house, my folks—"

"Yes," Minhyuk interrupted, "but what does that have to do with anything?"

"There was—"

Shit. Damn. Fuck and balls.

"There was a guy," Kihyun said miserably. "And he looked kinda like somebody I used to know."

Minhyuk narrowed his eyes and leaned forward hungrily. "A _guy_? What was his name?"

 

"My name's Changkyun," said Changkyun. "I'm starting classes on Monday. What's your major?"

"Queer studies," Yeojoo yelled back over the noise of too many drunk people and too loud music and too close surf. The beer in her hand sloshed a little when she gestured at him with it. "You want some?"

Changkyun looked at the red solo cup and thought for a second, musing on the words his mother had spoken to him about moments just like this. He had to be strong.

"Yeah," he said, "as long as it's a microbrew."

It turned out that almost all of the beer had been brewed within 20 miles of the beach, at a little place called The House Of Some Guy My Roommate's Cousin Knows Who Brews Beer, which, needless to say, one couldn't exactly find on yelp. Yeojoo booped him on the nose. "That micro enough for you?" she asked, her accent a mix between a valley girl swing and the telltale linguistic quirks of a kid who grew up speaking English at school and Korean at home. "The guy who makes it is a little prick, too, so it all works out. Say when."

"Just fill it," Changkyun said. He had to raise his voice for her to hear him and, frankly, he wasn't sure if he was meant for this sort of party.

There was a really big fire, for one thing. A bunch of people had brought firewood and old busted up furniture and defunct editions of enormous textbooks that were worth more as kindling than the bookstore would buy them back for, and the fire that had grown out of that was a force to be reckoned with. Changkyun had never been a huge fan of fire— possibly due to repeat viewings of the movie _Bambi_ in his formative years— but here he was anyway, getting drunk with a bunch of strangers and Yeojoo. (Yeojoo wasn't a stranger. He'd known her for more than five minutes. After ten minutes she could stand in for a psychiatric service animal in a pinch, especially since she’d mentioned the queer studies major.)

"Your first real college party?" When he looked up Yeojoo's grin was sharp and quick. "You just look a little on edge," she explained. "Are you expecting something big to happen? Should I be worried?"

"No," Changkyun said, which wasn't strictly a lie. He wasn't expecting anything in the same way a self-aware naughty child didn't expect anything on Christmas morning— with a little sting of hope and, of course, a little sting of fear. He didn't expect anything because 'expect' was the wrong verb. The right verb was something more along the lines of 'hope', or perhaps 'dread', or perhaps 'submitting to the chaos of the universe because things were getting too damn stressful to keep on fighting it'.

"Uh-oh," Yeojoo said, booming the word into her beer cup to make the sound pop. "Baby boy I only just met you and I'm already your mama, do you do this to all the lesbians or am I special?" She pulled him in close. "Is it an ex? Say the word and you can consider these impeccably manicured hands thrown."

"It's not an ex," Changkyun said. "It's just somebody I used to know. My family, uh, we used to come here every summer and I knew this one kid and I know there's no way he's here, now, but—" He bit his lips together. "It would just be funny. You know. To see him. Here."

"Funny ha-ha?"

"Yeah," Changkyun said. Then he said, "No. I don't know, it would just be weird. It's been a really long time since I even thought about him."

Yeojoo gave him a long, narrow look. It was the sort of look that, in the movies, would have been accompanied by a long, narrow drag on a long, narrow cigarette, but in real life she pulled an inhaler out of one pocket, rattled it, and inhaled a huge puff. "Pollen," she coughed out by way of explanation, sticking it back in her pocket. "He's sure sounding like somebody you used to know all right." She closed her eyes and crooned a few lines from the Gotye song into her beer. "Did he really have to cut you off—"

"No," Changkyun said, and then he drank the rest of the beer in his cup. "I'm the one who cut him off. Can I have more beer?"

"No," Yeojoo shot back, snatching his cup from his hands. "Not until you tell me this guy's name."

Changkyun opened his mouth, and said—

 

"Kihyun," Minhyuk said.

"Minhyuk," Kihyun replied.

“Talk to me.”

"So you know how I'm straight?"

Minhyuk tapped his fingertips on the table, impatient and curious. "Y’know,” he said shortly, “I'm starting to think I don't."

"I liked him," Kihyun said, ducking his head and lowering his voice over the male pronoun. "I mean I didn't, like— could you close your damn mouth, are you some kind of fucking fish?"

"I'm sorry," Minhyuk said. He did not, it should be noted, sound sorry at all. "Did you say that you, Kihyun, liked a boy? You mean _like_ liked him?" He sat back dreamily, palms flat on the table. "This whole time. We coulda been talking about boys this whole time."

"No," Kihyun gritted out, "because I wouldn't talk about boys with you."

"Except this one." Minhyuk arched his eyebrows. "Are you explaining yourself or not? If you don't," he added quickly, "pushing you off a bridge is still on the table."

"I didn't think about it like that, I dunno if I— if I _like_ liked him, but we..."

Blue ocean and sand under his fingernails, the heat of the sun whipped off his shoulders by a cool wind tearing down the shore, a red plastic shovel so worn and bent and faded it was nearly pink. (Kihyun could even remember how the little red shovel tasted, an ancient memory from before he learned not to put things in his mouth. Warm plastic, salt, the heavy green taste of seaweed. The taste of summers more innocent than this one.)

All this and that kid too, smaller than him, skin deep brown and warm to the touch under the sun, sea-tousled hair touched with golden brown and standing up wild in the wind. Kihyun remembered him laughing and noticing his slightly crooked teeth, Kihyun remembered him laughing and noticing the way his eyes curved.

"We were friends," he finished. "It just... dunno." His egg yolk had begun to congeal. He poked it with his fork and watched it ooze thickly over his hashbrowns. "Looking back it feels a lot like a crush."

When Kihyun looked up, confused by the unexpected silence, Minhyuk was staring at him with wide eyes and one hand pressed to his chest, over his heart.

"What?" Kihyun said.

"A _crush_ ," Minhyuk parroted back at him.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"On a _boy_."

"Could you stop?"

"No," Minhyuk replied primly, and propped himself up on one elbow on the edge of the table. "Not on your life. You haven't said a damn thing about why you woke up at Jooheon's apartment, just that you met a guy last night who reminded you of somebody you used to... have..."

"You are so fucking slow sometimes," Kihyun said miserably into the fraught and pregnant silence. "You know that?"

Minhyuk almost but not quite launched himself over the table toward him. "Kihyun," he hissed, "did you _fuck_ a _boy_?"

"No!" His coffee nearly went over but he saved it at the last second. "No, I didn't fuck— sit down, people are looking at us—"

Minhyuk sat back down, only slightly mollified. "Sure, fine, suppose I buy that. Why did you wake up in somebody else's bed?"

"It was a couch,” Kihyun said, having retroactively decided that he had woken up on a couch rather than in somebody else’s actual bed.

"Don't change the subject."

This was the worst part. "I don't remember," Kihyun said.

Minhyuk boggled at him. "Well like... do you have any clues? A receipt from a 2am dunkin donuts run? A sore ass?"

"That's not funny," Kihyun said darkly. "No, I just, I woke up on some couch—” (Liar.) “—and then I called you. I don't know. That's all there is."

"Well like... did you kiss him?"

 

"It's just that my gaydar is so bad," said the guy standing next to him, each S heavy with alcohol. He'd been talking about something for a couple of minutes now, although some thing _s_ may be a better way to put it. Gaydar or the lack of same featured largely in his discontent, as did friends who didn't have any respect for one's introverted proclivities, cell phone towers that didn't have the decency to even _try_ to look like trees, and fast food places that sell cheeseburgers but act like you have a second head when you try and order a regular old hamburger with no cheese. Who does that? It's a very simple request! Just don't do one of the normal steps! It's easy!

"Are you, like, lactose intolerant or something?" Changkyun hazarded.

"It's the principle of the thing," the guy said, and sniffed self-importantly. He peered into his red plastic cup. "What does that have to do with lesbians?"

"Maybe lesbians don't like cheese," Changkyun said. He knew for a fact this was not true but... but his head buzzed with something warm and kind with the sound of his voice, like one of those rare memories that doesn't carry even a hint of tragedy, and it was all he could do to keep the guy talking. He'd find something to say, a question to ask.

"I'm pretty sure the consumption of cheese isn't delineated on sexuality boundaries," the guy said. Then he hiccupped. "You new around here, kid?"

"College freshman, sir," he replied, snapping off a crisp salute. "Got here a couple weeks early to get a job and get settled and that's pretty much it. How about you?"

"Moved here last year." He laughed. "It's not a very interesting story. I've got a couple friends here, and there was a job opening... you know how it is."

"Not really," Changkyun said earnestly, and immediately regretted it. The look on the guy's face was some combination of drunken affrontedness and equally drunken confused betrayal. "I don't have a lot of friends," he added quickly. "Is what I meant."

"You don't?"

"Besides Yeojoo? Um, my roommate's a pretty cool—"

The guy cut him off with a long, low groan that started quiet and got louder and louder as he tipped forward, burying his face in Changkyun's shoulder. "My gaydar," he said, "is so fucking bad. How did I not realize she was a lesbian? Look—" He gestured wildly. "She's kissing her girlfriend. How? How am I this dumb?"

"Oh, well." Changkyun swirled the beer in his cup in an attempt to seem nonchalant and wise. "You just have to learn to recognize the signs. It's more of an art than a science."

"But I'm good at art and bad at science."

"It's more a science than an art?"

The guy considered this for a few brief moments of inebriated concentration. (There was swaying. Changkyun was strangely endeared.) "That makes sense," he said finally. "What so you... you're a scientist?"

"Not yet."

"Not yet?"

Changkyun shrugged. "The night is young. Who knows what experiments will be carried out tonight?"

"Ha ha," the guy said. "Yeah. Experiments."

"Experiments," Changkyun repeated slowly, watching his new buddy for the telltale signs of alcohol poisoning. "Science. You know how it is."

"Not really. How's your gaydar, kid?"

"Reasonable," Changkyun replied. "Try me."

"Do me."

Changkyun spit out his beer. "Hold on—"

"I mean guess me," the guy said, spluttering a little. "Use that gaydar on me. Am I straight?"

"Are you?"

"Yeah, what the fuck kind of question is that?"

"My gaydar says you're straight," Changkyun said. "My gaydar is really great, I do a thing where if I'm curious I ask people. I get the right answer every time. It's like taking an open-book test."

"But like..."

Changkyun glanced up, and it hit him.

He'd had never spent much time or thought on imagining what his childhood friend might look like as an adult but there been a general feeling of Tallness in those fantasies, few and far between though they may have been, that the person in front of him simply didn't exude. It was him, though. There wasn't anybody else it could be.

His hands were the same, for one thing, even though what he held now was a red solo cup instead of a red plastic shovel— fingers delicate and knobbly at the same time, nails bitten down to the quick. His laugh was the same, too. Lower, of course. He sounded like an adult instead of a 10 year old kid flying kites on the beach.

Maybe it was the beer that kept him so calm about it. Maybe it was the sound of his voice. Maybe it was the waves.

"... How do you know?" the guy finished.

"That you're straight?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"It usually involves only wanting to kiss girls, but everything's got a gray area so who knows, really."

"What," he said. "Like... _only_ girls?"

"Why?" Changkyun's gaydar was beeping wildly on the dashboard of his soul. "Interested in a little science, Sir?"

 

Kihyun's hands were steady enough to get the key in the lock the first time, which he credited to the sausage he'd consumed ravenously in his hungover haze. Nothing like a little protein to get the hands moving in tandem with the brain. That and some more coffee and he'd almost be human.

When he took off his shoes, this time consciously and in his own home, sand poured loose from the insoles. He shook it out on the linoleum and watched it settle in drifts, swirling into corners in eddies and waves. It had always been the worst part of the beach house, the sand that would inevitably creep into his sneakers and pockets and the insides of his ears when he wasn't paying attention.

It was something he'd forget about every year, only to be reminded again the moment he stepped out of the minivan and onto the sandy driveway of the house on the hill. Years ago he'd worn his jeans cuffed, and they'd fill up with the detritus of a trip to the beach well-spent. Now he just had damp socks and haphazardly tied shoes, which was far less whimsical.

Kihyun sighed and pulled his socks off, slapping them on the linoleum a few times to knock off the worst of the sand.

Minhyuk had eventually let him get away with the old I Was Too Drunk To Remember excuse, which was good, because that was the truth. (Kihyun always appreciated it when reality lined up with the lie he would have told had things turned out differently. Minhyuk found it disgustingly perverted, which only helped Kihyun appreciate it that much more.)

He smelled like beach and sweat and smoke and beer and the underside of a cat box, and felt ten times worse. He left his hoodie on the linoleum floor of the entryway next to his sandy shoes. His t-shirt he dropped next to the couch in the living room, his jeans he shimmied out of and abandoned in the hall with one leg inside out.

It had started getting easier to think rationally about this. He'd never say the words out loud but talking to Minhyuk had helped, the drive home with the windows down and the music blasting had helped, getting out of his gross clothes had helped.

Kihyun turned on the fan in the bathroom and started the water in the tub, pausing for a moment to fully inspect how fucking horrible he looked. Undereye bags, check. Undereye shadows, check. Bloodshot eyes, check. Bloodless cheeks, check. The beginning of a breakout on his chin, check.

He nodded at himself in the mirror, resigned to his fate. It could definitely be worse.

Kihyun dropped his shorts, and it was worse.

"Oh no," he said impassively, speaking directly to the mottled collection of delicate hickeys and bruises that had been scattered across his hips and thighs by some unknown but extremely thorough source.

Shit. Damn. Fuck and balls.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn’t notice it the first day because he was hungover. The second day he didn’t notice it because he didn’t want to. The third day... the third day he noticed it, he just wished he hadn’t so hard that he was able to put off the actual moment of ‘discovery’ until a final, fourth day.

Kihyun had turned it inside out when he’d peeled it off last weekend and it had been kicked up along the wall in the main hallway leading into the house, just a pile of soft gray fabric in a corner that could have been anything from a pair of underwear to a kitchen towel, or anyway that’s what Kihyun told himself, on that third day when he noticed it and wished he hadn’t. _It_ could be anything, he thought fervently to himself, and dealt with the uncertainty in the manner he’d dealt with all other uncertainties he’d come across throughout his life: by avoiding it as industriously as possible.

“What’s this?” came Minhyuk’s voice behind him, lilting— delighted, curious— like a super villain who’s just caught the hero’s sidekick sneaking in through the vents during the Big Showdown. “Hello there. Where did _you_ come from?”

“My mother,” Kihyun said over his shoulder, because he hadn’t yet realized the true horror of his situation. “Wha—”

When he turned around Minhyuk was holding a bunched up piece of soft gray fabric suspended between both hands. “Since when do you go shopping for clothes by yourself?”

There were a lot of reasons why Kihyun hated Minhyuk, the most important being that Minhyuk was his best friend and Kihyun trusted him with his life, a fact of which Minhyuk was fully aware and milked for all it was worth. Another reason was the way he ate mangoes, if ‘ate’ was the right verb for the act of violence he wrought, and yet a third was that Minhyuk actually really truly had Kihyun’s best interests at heart, god damn the bastard to hell.

Kihyun jerked forward so quickly and suddenly that he almost choked on his breath, lurching to jerk the fabric from Minhyuk’s hands. “I do lots of things by myself.”

“Right.” Minhyuk leaned on the word with the full weight of an unspoken masturbation joke. “But you don’t even listen to Queen.”

Kihyun looked down. It was a t-shirt, dark gray, with big block letters that read GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE in rainbow ombre. “What does this have to do with the royal family?” he said, and immediately knew it was the exact wrong thing to say.

“Same thing as the price of tea in China,” Minhyuk quipped back. “The band, Ki. I know you’re a square but I have personally witnessed you bombing Bohemian Rhapsody drunk off your ass at the karaoke bar on 13th so I know for a fact that you’re not _that_ square.”

“His range was inhuman,” Kihyun muttered sullenly, hugging the gray t-shirt to his chest. “It’s not fair to compare Freddie Mercury to mere mortals.”

“Did I just hear you admit that you’re not the second coming? Is the end of the world upon us? What’s next, lions lying next to lambs? How many seals have been broken so far?”

“Have you been reading the Bible again?”

“The last book in there is a trip, man. You hardly even need drugs to feel the high. Stop changing the subject, where’d you get that shirt?”

“I don’t remember,” Kihyun said, furrowing his brow worriedly exactly like a liar would in every single way. “Maybe somebody left it here.”

That somebody had been him. He’d left it there, four days ago. He’d been out of it, hungover and stupid and in need of either a shower or four years in an autoclave depending on which got him cleaner. He’d stripped off his clothes walking in the door and down the hall and into the bathroom, and then—

“Yeah,” Kihyun said. He barely sounded like he was choking at all. “Weird. Couldn’t tell you. I don’t recognize it,” he added, comfortable in the knowledge that _tha_ t at least wasn’t a lie, until he realized it was, and that he did. Then he said: “Oh.”

Minhyuk was on it so quick it felt almost instantaneous. “Oh? What ‘oh’? Is that a romcom ‘oh’?”

“There’s no such thing as a romcom ‘oh’,” Kihyun replied, balling the t-shirt up in his hands and tossing it down the hallway in the general direction of the laundry room. “Are you gonna do what you came here to do or what?”

“Oh yeah, that. Have I ever mentioned that you’re a god among men, Kihyun Yoo?”

“Yes, but later you always take it back. Just put your clothes in the washer, okay? And hurry up, or I’ll start the Brooklyn 99 marathon without you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Minhyuk hissed, scrambling for the big mesh sack of dirty clothing sitting on the floor by his feet. “You would deprive me of my one true love? Even for a moment?”

“Captain Holt is a) fictional and b) married.”

“That has nothing to do with what I asked.” Minhyuk stood there for a brief moment, hand to his heart. “But how cruel of you to remind me.”

 

* * *

 

The worst was 4:20am.

For one thing Kihyun was awake, and 4:20am is a very lonely time to be awake. For another thing Minhyuk had drilled every 420 into him since they'd discovered their first bag of depressingly obvious oregano (to a 14 year old anything green in a plastic baggie is probably weed, especially if it costs $40 and the guy who sells it to you is in _high school_ which means he's _practically_ a _grown_ up) and now he looked at his watch at 4:19:56 on the dot every single time despite being an actual grown up human who only smoked weed when he could afford it, which was almost never because he worked a shitty job as a night security guard at one of the museums on campus.

But mostly it was that 4:20am was a very lonely time to be awake and yet Kihyun was horribly awake, treading his well-worn path through the labyrinth of exhibits and creatively placed walls that served the important purpose of confusing the hell out of him for his first three months on the job. ("The morning supervisor says he hasn't seen you in the Blue room on the cctv," his manager had said. Kihyun remembered himself replying, "There's a Blue room?" and then watching the light leave his manager's eyes.) It was a horrible time to be horribly awake but he was and that was that and at least he had the reverse glass painting exhibit to distract him for a few minutes.

The thing that he liked the most about the shining panes of painted glass was how it had been painted from the outside in. Highlights and shadows dappled on top of the glass before the brush strokes of skin, cuffs painted first before bare wrists. The details were first, the middle ground second, the background third, and then you flipped it and it was smooth and perfect and, perhaps most importantly, on the other side. It seemed like the kind of thing he could relate to if relating to things was the sort of thing he did, but as it was he could at least appreciate the artistry. Every time he thought of it as backwards he chided himself— what was backwards to one person might be forwards to somebody else— but compared to what he was used to it was like starting at the end and carefully working your way back to the very beginning.

He hated it, the kind of hatred he normally reserved for coloring books filled with nothing but crayon scrawls and disrespected lines, but he loved it at the same time. It was the wrong way around but that made it better somehow, like there was something special inside it, like it was coming out of a haze— pure and clear and glowing with a hidden light that simple matte paint, by rights, shouldn't be able to capture.

But then again maybe that was part of what drew him to the exhibit, a sort of kinship born of sheer backwardness and the dull throbbing loneliness of seeing things from the outside in, so maybe relating to inanimate objects was the sort of thing he did actually do. Kihyun glanced at his watch. It wasn't even 5am yet, he was allowed to get a little bit hysterical.

Relating to inanimate objects was the sort of thing Minhyuk did, sending him memes at all hours (at 3pm! when any sane night security guard would be asleep) accompanied only with captions like "is this u" and "me after a long night playing cribbage with the boys," and to say Kihyun associated the activity with general wickedness would be putting it lightly.

The worst thing about 4:20am was that it meant he still had 1 hour and 40 minutes of work before the morning guard showed up. Kihyun comforted himself as he continued shuffling through the gallery with the knowledge that with every passing moment he crept closer to death and so too closer to quitting time.

 

* * *

 

Two hours and 13.5 minutes. It was not 1 hour 40 minutes, it was 2 hours 13.5 minutes, and Kihyun spent all 33.5 of the extra minutes stewing in a thick stew of furious indignation.

"You are late," he said when he heard the door of the security booth open behind him. "You are thirty-three and a half minutes late."

"Traffic," Hyungwon mumbled, leaning against the desk. "Could you, uh—"

"Five bucks and I'll tell the boss you were on time and just forgot to clock in." Kihyun presented his hand, palm up. "Actually, make it ten. I'm in a bad mood and I have a headache and you owe me a really, _really_ fancy coffee."

"Can you break a 20?" Hyungwon asked, fumbling in his back pockets for his wallet.

"Can you break it to your girlfriend that you lost your job for being tardy for the dozenth time?" Kihyun flapped his hand expectantly. "I'll bring you the change tomorrow. Give it."

"It's just that it's starting to get cold." Hyungwon was putting off the moment of truth, wallet still closed in one hand. "And my scooter is getting pretty old, y'know, so it takes a while to start up..."

"So what you're saying is that it wasn't traffic, and you lied to me?"

Hyungwon went paler than normal, which was impressive because Kihyun was pretty sure he hadn't seen the sun in a year. "Uh."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna be bringing you any change."

"... That's fair." Hyungwon handed over a twenty dollar bill. "Thanks for saving my job for one more day. I'll bring you flowers next time."

"Flowers? How plebeian." Kihyun shouldered out of his cheap puffy security jacket and hung it on its hook. Nobody worried about lockers. _He_ didn't even want to wear a jacket with _Ki-hung_ embroidered over the left breast, and technically it was his. "C'mon, can't you Queer Eye up something fancy for me?"

"I am not," said Hyungwon self-importantly, "that kind of queer."

"What, the responsible kind?"

"Right, that kind. Go take my money and buy yourself a fancy coffee so I can languish here alone for three hours."

"You'll excuse me if I don't include you in my prayers tonight," Kihyun drawled, swinging his bag over one shoulder. "Seeing as how I spent a whole shift by myself and _someone_ was thirty-three and a half minutes late relieving me."

"You have your blood money, get out of here."

Kihyun blew him a kiss over one shoulder as he pushed through the door. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he called.

"Sounds boring," Hyungwon yelled back.

 

* * *

 

September smelled like leaves and tasted like earth, an ice-tinged sort of flavor that came down from the mountains and mingled with the salt mist blowing off the surf. It was especially icy in the morning right before sunrise— it still too early in the year to get properly cold during the day, but at night while Kihyun walked the quiet abandoned halls of the museum the temperature sank and at six in the morning when he finally stepped outside again a persistent chill bit at his ears.

Any other morning he might have pocketed the cash and just gone back home to drink the clearance coffee he’d picked up in bulk from a big box store the day before the whole pallet was thrown out to make space for something that would sell, but he had twenty whole dollars and when he stepped out onto the sidewalk, god, there was a smell from one of the coffee shops on the Avenue that was like a goddess of morning had blessed a croissant so thoroughly that just to witness it would be akin to heavenly ascension.

Kihyun pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. The cash pocket had Hyungwon’s brand new twenty dollar bill, a few receipts from big box stores for non-perishable goods bought in bulk from the clearance section, and a little card that said IF LOST, RETURN TO: and then nothing, because he’d never gotten around to writing anything on it. In the empty glass growler near his front door he had at least a pound of metal in the form of various coins, some domestic, some international, all in all totaling perhaps $17.43. That meant that if Minhyuk paid him back for that laundry detergent...

“You deserve this,” Kihyun said to himself. He closed his wallet and stuck it into his back pocket again. “Hyungwon was late. You can get a fancy coffee. Treat yourself.” Then he said _treat yo self_ very quietly to himself a few times to see how close he could get to a true Tom Haverford before realizing what he was doing and subsequently stopping.

The point was that he was allowed to get a fancy coffee. And a croissant, too, but only one that had been suitably blessed.

The coffee shop he found at the other end of that heavenly smell was one he’d never been in before, but it was a college town and coffee shops came and went faster than it took him to fill up a punch card. Of course this was also because he usually didn’t spend money on fancy coffee or really anything that got him out of the house, which Minhyuk liked to mention sometimes when Kihyun wondered why he didn’t have any friends.

(”I can tell you why,” Minhyuk would say every time. “It’s because you’re boring. And a pervert. Pass the bong.” Kihyun couldn’t help but notice that not only did Minhyuk hang out with him anyway, he even shared his weed. They were probably common-law married in some states.)

“Kihyun,” he said to the cashier when she asked for his name to write on the cup. “K, I, H, Y, U, N.” He went through this song and dance every time and no barista yet had managed to say his name correctly when calling out his drink, but still— hope somehow sprang eternal. Also he liked watching the happiness die in white people’s eyes when they heard his name and realized they might have to reproduce it later. That was really what kept him coming back.

He got a croissant. They looked marginally blessed and he was weak.

Kihyun found a seat next to the window and looked out through the glass without really seeing anything. In the background the coffee shop hummed and buzzed into life, the half-screaming hiss of steamed milk, the _thunk thunk_ when the barista knocked the old grounds loose and into the compost bin.

He’d started getting used to it. The cool mornings. The scent of salt in the air. The taste of juniper. When he’d visited as a kid everything about it had seemed magical, but living here and paying bills and dealing with irresponsible coworkers and annoying best friends... he’d started getting used to it. There was a routine now, and he’d fallen into it.

It was kind of nice.

A voice called out over the din and clatter of the coffee shop, and he knew that it was calling him even though it didn’t sound even a little like his name.

Behind the counter stood the guy from the bonfire party, holding a cardboard coffee cup in the air. “Sir?” he repeated, looking Kihyun in the eye. Then he smiled, set the cup down, and said, “Long time no see, Sir. Eight years and you’re _still_ leaving your clothes at my house.”

“Oh,” Kihyun said.

“Hold on just a second,” the kid said, “I’m gonna take my break, we gotta catch up!”

He didn't know how to say no to someone that excited, and it had nothing to do with what his thighs looked like. (They were bruised. Whatever— whoever— had worked him over two days ago had known what it— they were doing, and now his inner thighs were practically chartreuse.) “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go sit down.”

 

* * *

 

He looked really really really good.

That was three too many adverbs for a straight man to think about a guy he might have had sex with, but Kihyun thought all three of them. Then he thought some more adverbs, and then threw in some superlatives for good measure. (Who said he hadn’t learned anything in university? What, like failing out was only for stupid people? Don’t be absurd. Failure has always been equal opportunity.) He looked really really _really_ good, and Kihyun had no idea what to call him.

“I totally forgot your name,” Kihyun confessed, combing his hair back off his forehead with one hand. He tried to look embarrassed, and it was really easy because he was already embarrassed. “It’s been, like...”

“Eight years,” the guy from the bonfire party said again. He didn’t seem annoyed— more amused, maybe delighted. Kihyun wasn’t sure exactly what his current predicament was but this kid was definitely laughing at it and for some reason Kihyun couldn’t be mad at him for it. “It’s really okay that you don’t remember, Sir.”

"Right," Kihyun said. He used a very normal voice to say this. He knew it was very normal because he concentrated very hard on making very sure the voice he used was very normal. “You don’t have to call me Sir.”

That was the thing: the kid from the bonfire party knew his name. It had been written on the cup, he'd read it right alongside the mysterious felt-tipped runes used by baristas the world over, but he kept calling Kihyun _Sir_.

“It’s more fun this way,” the kid replied, and flashed a grin far too bright and sudden for those serious eyes. “I’ll call you by your name when you call me by mine.”

“But I don’t _remember_ your name.”

“Well, right. That’s what’s fun about it.”

Kihyun was struck dumb by this, but it wasn’t the first time (nor would it be the last time) that this had happened to him today. He usually had responses to things, even surprising things, but he had a haunting feeling that if there was a script someone had forgotten to give him a copy and the kid from the bonfire was hoarding all the extras. “What am I supposed to call you?”

“I don’t care what you call me as long as you call me. RuPaul,” the kid added, seeing the look on Kihyun’s face.

“Your name is RuPaul?”

“What? No, that— I was quoting RuPaul. Do you know who RuPaul is?”

“I think I have your shirt,” Kihyun said. He didn’t know who RuPaul was. “Not now. Uh. At my house.”

“Ditto,” the kid replied. “Hey, I have to get back to work. I can see my shift supervisor plotting my death from here. We should meet sometime, hang out, catch up.”

“Trade shirts,” Kihyun added.

That got him another smile, but this time it was familiar. “Gimme your phone. I’ll put my number in.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Minutes**

[Kihyun]  
Hello! This is you messaging yourself so that you have hyung's number!

[WOLFPUPPY]  
hello self! i'm so glad to receive your text

[Kihyun]  
Why did you put your name as WOLFPUPPY in my phone?

[WOLFPUPPY]  
for fun, Sir  
did you think i'd put my name in?  
i'm not stupid

[Kihyun]  
I once witnessed you eat sand

[WOLFPUPPY]  
i was a child

[Kihyun]  
You were 9 years old

[WOLFPUPPY]  
9 year olds are children  
heading into class now  
tell me when you're free so we can hang out

[Kihyun]  
And swap shirts

[WOLFPUPPY]  
you're not getting out of going on this nostalgia trip with me, Sir

[Kihyun]  
That's not what I meant  
Hey kid you know that's not what I meant, right?  
Kid?

* * *

**Hours**

 

[WOLFPUPPY]  
good students silence their phones in class, Sir  
don't you want me to get a good education

[Kihyun]  
Yeah sorry I was  
Whatever  
Being dumb I guess  
You know that's not what I meant though right?

[WOLFPUPPY]  
lmao  
u know i was expecting you to be taller

[Kihyun]  
What's that supposed to mean

[WOLFPUPPY]  
i put words in the order i do in order to communicate what i mean to the people with whom i am conversing

[Kihyun]  
???

[WOLFPUPPY]  
it means that i, meaning me, assumed, which means that i made a guess, that you, meaning you, would be taller, meaning that the top of your head would be higher than it is

[Kihyun]  
You don't have to get sassy about it.

[WOLFPUPPY]  
get?  
get??  
oh, Sir.  
i'm already sassy  
there's no cure  
it's terminal

[Kihyun]  
Terminal Rudeness

[WOLFPUPPY]  
not RUDE  
sassy

[Kihyun]  
Sassy is rude

[WOLFPUPPY]  
sassy is rude but also adorable  
aka: me

[Kihyun]  
You can't be both at the same time

[WOLFPUPPY]  
watch me ;)  
ttyl time 2 study

[Kihyun]  
Text me your class schedule and we'll find a time to meet up

[WOLFPUPPY]  
sorry too busy being a good student  
i'll text you when i can

 

* * *

**Days**

[WOLFPUPPY]  
did u miss me

[Kihyun]  
Oh  
It's you

[WOLFPUPPY]  
now who's rude  
my schedule’s a mess  
i’ll text you when i’ve got time

[Kihyun]  
And what, you think I’ll be available?

[WOLFPUPPY]  
you respond to all my texts within 30s

[Kihyun]  
That has nothing to do with anything.

[WOLFPUPPY]  
i’ll text u

 

* * *

**Weeks**

[Kihyun]  
Do you not want your shirt back, or

[WOLFPUPPY]  
fuck sorry  
we can meet up any time as long as it’s at like  
lol  
1am???  
i have time at 1am

[Kihyun]  
Works for me  
You know that 24 hour mexican place on 15th?

[WOLFPUPPY]  
1 works for you?  
no offense but why

[Kihyun]  
Maybe I’ll tell you when you tell me your name

[WOLFPUPPY]  
you can just say you work nights

[Kihyun]  
Rude  
My lunch break is at 12:30am Fri-Tue

[WOLFPUPPY]  
does next mon work?

[Kihyun]  
Your limit is $10  
See you Monday

 

* * *

**Seconds**

[Kihyun]  
I told him I’d buy him a burrito  
Help

[Minhyuk]  
Wow  
Pick something a little more phallic, I dare you

[Kihyun]  
Put a penny in the jar.

[Minhyuk]  
I’m the only adult man with a Dick Joke Jar

[Kihyun]  
I’m teaching you about money  
This is a learning moment  
Put a quarter in the Dick Joke Jar

* * *

 

On Monday morning Kihyun got home from work, looked at the small pile of laundry on top of his washing machine, thought about how he still hadn’t washed the Queen shirt, and then went to bed. He had time to wash it later.

On Monday evening Kihyun woke up to go to work, looked at the small pile of laundry on top of his washing machine, thought about how he still hadn’t washed the Queen shirt, and said: “Well, god damn it.” Then he left for work, unwashed Queen shirt still waiting for him to stop being an avoidant piece of trash. He walked out the front door in the sure and certain knowledge that he was innocently forgetting it, despite how much it was burning a hole in his conscience.

Hyungwon, king of swing shifts, was at the back desk when Kihyun clocked in. Kihyun didn’t even look at him when he said, “First of all, you owe me.”

He didn’t have to look at him in order to feel the force of Hyungwon’s lazy eye roll. “For what?”

“Second, I’ve got blackmail on you.”

“Ki.”

“Remember the mayo stain on the antique chaise longue in the Gold Room that I said had to have been left there by a kid and that there was no use checking the security footage because I knew for a fact no one had accidentally fallen asleep on top of their own egg salad sandwich at 1am?”

“Kihyun Yoo. You swore on your grandmother’s grave.”

“She’s not dead,” Kihyun replied, laying down his trump card with all the self-effacing humility of an american football player who’s just made the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl. This meant, of course, that he did a victory dance. He was pretty sure it was extremely seductive and manly.

“You look like an aged punk rock chicken,” Hyungwon said flatly. “What do you /want?”

“Stay a little late tonight to cover me going to lunch.”

“We’re night security guards. We don’t get lunches. We just sit in the booth and eat sandwiches in the small hours of the morning.”

“Or fall asleep on them,” Kihyun added coolly.

“Of course I’ll stay a little late tonight,” Hyungwon replied promptly. “I’m a great friend and would love to help you out of the goodness of my heart.”

“That’s what I always say about you.”

“Liar. Do you have a date or something?”

Kihyun dropped his jacket on the tile floor instead of hanging it on the hook. He tried to convince himself that he’d done so on purpose. “No,” he said. “Just in the mood for Mexican.”

“Right,” Hyungwon said, turning back to the bank of shaky security monitors. “No girl in her right mind would meet you for a taco in the middle of the night.”

“Probably not,” Kihyun replied, with feeling.

* * *

 

[kihyun]  
Do you want a burrito or not?

[WOLFPUPPY]  
of course i want a burrito, where are you?

[kihyun]  
Outside the restaurant

[WOLFPUPPY]  
it’s freezing out there  
i’m inside  
because i’m not an IDIOT

* * *

 

When Kihyun looked at him he couldn't think what to call him. He was sort of attached to the moniker The Kid but in the unblinking fluorescent light of the 24 hour Mexican place on 15th The Kid didn't look like quite so much of a kid as when he'd been a, uh, you know, a kid. He'd painted his nails black like some kind of art student (was he an art student? Kihyun couldn't remember if he'd asked, let alone what the answer might have been) and despite the Thundercats t-shirt layered over a long-sleeved shirt with holes in the cuffs for his thumbs to hook through-- the epitome of ‘00s high school fashion, in Kihyun's opinion, the only thing missing being heelies-- despite all that, he looked...

"Get the one with potatoes," the Kid said at his shoulder, rubbing his palms together to warm himself up. "It's got cheese and potatoes and sour cream and chives and whatever, did I mention the potatoes?"

"That sounds like what /you want."

"It's what everybody wants, they just don't love themselves enough to ask for it. Get the one with potatoes."

"That sounds really heavy."

"Oh," the Kid said, nodding wisely. "It is."

Kihyun got the one with potatoes.

The street outside shone bright, the rain-blackened asphalt streaked with yellow light. It was midnight— almost midnight, maybe— and everyone with brains was in bed. He said as much to his dinner partner, who laughed.

"It's for the best," he replied, hands deep in his pockets. His jeans were scuffed at the knee, fresh grass stains ground hard into the denim suggesting a recent spill on the quad. His painted nails, his ripped jeans, his Thundercats t-shirt. Kihyun had never wanted to remember the events of a blackout more than he did now.

"What?" said Kihyun. "Sorry, I— I zoned out. It's late."

"It's early," the Kid countered. "You forget I see you in the mornings sometimes when you're getting off of work, I know you're the late late shift."

Wind curled in through the crack left by a carelessly closed door but he felt warm despite it, feeling heat high in his chest, low in his throat, bright and brittle like a champagne glass of spun sugar. "You see me?" Kihyun asked.

"Through the window," the Kid replied, expertly folding his straw wrapper into a makeshift football. "You walk by sometimes. And it's because of the zombies," he added, nonchalant, before sternly flicking the origami football across the table to bounce off of Kihyun's chest.

"The who?"

"The zombies," the Kid repeated. "Weren't you listening?"

"No," Kihyun said, with complete and utter certainty. "I wasn't."

"People with no brains don't have to worry about zombies, which come out at night. Forget it," he sighed after a second. "It wasn't a very good joke to begin with. When is our food gonna be—" A bell rang, and the guy behind the counter set two foil-wrapped burritos in the pick-up section. "Gimme a sec," The Kid said, scrambling out of his seat to go get their food. "Be right back, Sir."

"Sure," Kihyun called after him.

* * *

 

[kihyun]  
I still don’t know his name

[min]  
Have you tried sucking it out of him

[kihyun]  
No  
Gross  
Please never say anything like that to me ever again

[min]  
Never is a long time  
Have you asked him to make an honest woman of you yet

[kihyun]  
He’s coming back  
Fuck you

[min]  
Yikes  
Thanks but no thanks my dude

* * *

 

“What do you mean you forgot my shirt?”

Kihyun dug through his bag with growing desperation. “I thought I grabbed it,” he lied, compartmentalizing his vague and selfish guilt almost well enough to believe it. “Shit. Fuck. I’m, I’m really sorry, it’s been—”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” The Kid interrupted. “It’s not like we’ll never see each other again, right? Definitely next week, for one thing.”

“Sure,” said Kihyun. He closed his messenger bag and carefully fastened each individual clasp, one after the other. “I mean— you see me. In the mornings.”

The Kid laughed, not unkindly. He had sour cream smeared at the corner of his mouth and it took more effort than it should have for Kihyun to stop from reaching out and wiping it clean. “Sometimes. You can come in, you know that, right? We’ve got great chocolate croissants.”

What Kihyun wanted to say was /That’s a frivolous expense and I don’t want to waste money on such a mundane experience, but when he opened his mouth what came out was: “Neato.”

“’Neato,’” The Kid echoed. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of old fashioned?”

“Yeah. A lot of people, actually.” Kihyun smoothed down the front of his shirt. “It’s just good manners.”

“That’s fair. Manners maketh man.”

“Are you quoting Kingsmen at me?”

“I’ve got a weak spot for authority figures taking on young proteges.”

“I bet you love Batman, then.”

“Are you kidding?” The Kid sighed and pressed a hand to his chest, sliding slowly and reverently down in his seat. “Chris O’Donnell in Batman Forever is a catalyst for a million gay awakenings.”

“That’s,” Kihyun said. “You know, that kind of seems like a lot.”

“I had a few thousand all by myself, don’t worry. Puberty wasn’t kind to my parents’ tissue paper budget I can tell you that much.” The Kid cocked his head to one side. “Why? You got a problem with it?”

“No,” Kihyun stuttered, “I mean I’m not— you know, uh, I mean I haven’t seen Batman Forever so I dunno what, you know, or who? Who you mean? Chris O’Donnell doesn’t sound familiar,” he finished, and then he said, “I mean I’m not, but no. No problems. It’s cool. I should really get, get back to work. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Outside it was still cold, probably even colder. The Kid’s lips went blue in seconds and Kihyun didn’t warm them up. “Hey,” Kihyun said.

“Yeah?”

"I'm sorry," Kihyun said. "About what happened. At the beach, I mean."

"Don't worry," The Kid said back, laughed, shook his head as he backed away in a funny half skip. It was cold; his breath fogged in the air, he’d buried his hands deep in his pockets. "You made sure I knew that you're only like that when you're drunk."

“Oh,” Kihyun said, but he said it to a pocket of air.

The Kid moved on, and Kihyun remained behind.


	4. Chapter 4

“You can tell I’m sick,” Minhyuk moaned over the phone, “because if I was feeling good I would never ask for something like this.”

“Cucumber tea?” Kihyun looked at the clock on his dashboard. It wasn’t as late as it seemed like it should be, but between the thick black clouds overhead and the autumn sun careering wildly toward the winter solstice it almost seemed like midnight. He was exhausted, too. That didn’t help. “I have never heard of you drinking cucumber tea. Cucumber anything.”

“Green tea,” Minhyuk croaked. “With cucumber. For my throat.”

“Yeah that sounds fake.”

“It’s real, and I need it, and you’re a bad friend if you don’t get it for me, and I’ll tell your mom.”

“She’ll back me up.”

“You and I both know she thinks I’m nice.”

“She’s getting senile.”

“I’ll tell her your said that.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Bring me the tea,” Minhyuk replied. “It might be a little hard to find but there’s a couple different tea places you can look—”

“I know,” Kihyun said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine noisily discussed turning over but decided amongst itself that it was too tired. “I can find tea. I’m not stupid.” Another turn of the key, another riotous conversation. “God damn it—”

Taking the Lord’s name in vain turned out to be what his car needed, and it rumbled into life practically on cue.

“Thanks, see you later,” Minhyuk sang into the phone, and hung up.

A few miles inland from the ocean there were deciduous trees, ready for autumn despite their thick leaves, but as Kihyun drove the curving road down the ridge into town the landscape went from lush to the more gnarled evergreens of the coast, wide sandy spaces between the trees littered with brown pine needles. It was cool but not cold, the kind of shining gold-blue fall day when the sky is so vast and deep you could almost lose yourself in it, the wind sighing and staccato to scatter leaves and pine needles and, annoyingly, Kihyun's hair, but it wasn't so annoying that he didn't keep his windows down as he wound down the highway.

The descriptor _crisp_ seems cliche, but then again cliches become cliches because they feel so right to so many people, and the day was crisp. Like a perfectly dry orange leaf on a sidewalk, freshly fallen and ready to be stepped on. Like a sliver of ice on the tip of his tongue. Like a potato chip.

Maybe he should pick up some potato chips.

 

* * *

[Kihyun]  
I found white tea with cucumber

[Minhyuk]  
It has to be green tea

[Kihyun]  
Are you for real?

[Minhyuk]  
Yes I'm for real  
Would I lie to you

[Kihyun]  
I swear to god you’re fucking with me

[Minhyuk]  
Don’t be ridiculous

[Kihyun]  
I think I found it  
.img  
Is this it?  
.......  
Okay well I’m buying this and you owe me for both the tea and the gas

[Kihyun]  
Where the hell are you  
Because you are either dead or not at home like you said you would be  
I hate you and I’m going home  
If you’re dead I don’t actually hate you  
LOL can you imagine if those were my last words to you  
It’s been a long day.

* * *

 

The first odd thing Kihyun noticed on his drive home was the presence of crushed leaves on the road.

The sun had set a while ago, sinking quickly enough that he missed most of it while inside an Asian grocery store trying to communicate with an ancient and near-sighted Japanese woman who was convinced he too was Japanese and therefore was just being stubborn by speaking English, trying to locate green tea with cucumber for a friend toward whom Kihyun was feeling less friendly with every passing moment, but the point was that it was dark enough that he had to turn his lights on and so the conditions were perfect for exposed wet asphalt to shine in his eyes.

In most places it wouldn’t be anything noteworthy. But it wasn’t most places, it was here, and there were exactly four driveways along this road. One of them was his, and the other three belonged to vacation homes empty of inhabitants... but the leaves on the road were crushed by tires. A lot of them.

Kihyun had a terrible sinking feeling that Minhyuk wasn’t sick at all, nor at home, nor dead.

When he pulled into his driveway the billowing cloud of what he’d assumed was smoke thankfully turned out to be the output of an over-eager fog machine, propped up on his porch next to a row of jack o’ lanterns so poorly carved that they must have been manufactured by artists intoxicated on something.

There were red plastic cups on his lawn. (His _lawn_.) There was a stranger tucked halfway underneath his hydrangeas. (His _hydrangeas_!) There was a Halloween party happening, in short, and it was happening at his goddamn fucking house.

His _goddamn fucking house!_

Kihyun calmly stopped a passing Grim Reaper by the elbow. “Hi,” he said, pulling the long scythe out of Death’s bony hand. “I’m going to borrow this. I have someone to kill.”

He had the vague impression of someone saying, “Hey, that cost $14.99,” but he was already moving toward the house with a plastic weapon in his hand and murder on his mind. Somewhere inside there was one Minhyuk Lee, and soon there wouldn’t be any Minhyuk Lee anywhere.

(Not true. There are a lot of people named Minhyuk Lee. It’s a good name.)

He didn't kick the front door down for a number of reasons, not least of which being that the door technically belonged to an elderly relative and he didn't have the mental fortitude to confess to such a sin, and anyway someone was opening it as he stomped up the front steps so if he'd tried he'd have stomped some poor bastard right in the crotch.

"Before you say anything," Minhyuk hissed into his ear as he stepped over the threshold, slipping in behind him and wrapping both hands around his arm in a vice grip, "I want you to know that his name is Changkyun, he's 19, he's in the astronomy department, and you're welcome."

Kihyun jerked his arm back and flailed at Minhyuk weakly with his stolen plastic blade. "What? Who—"

"I found out for you," Minhyuk said. He grinned, and his fake vampire teeth glowed eerie purple under the ultraviolet light. "That guy you've been swooning over. He's Honey's flatmate, it's great, we can go on double _dates_ —"

"Does Jooheon even know you exist?" Kihyun snapped.

"The jury's still out," Minhyuk replied, "but after tonight he's definitely gonna know my name."

"I don't wanna know."

"Because he's gonna scream it when I—"

"I said I don't wanna know!" Kihyun shoved the costume scythe into Minhyuk's hands more roughly than he should have. (No, he should have done it even rougher. He should have punched Minhyuk in the face, and he would, later, if he remembered, and also if he felt like dealing with the consequences. He probably wouldn't, but a boy could dream.) "Are you trying to tell me you threw a Halloween party at my house, without telling me, just to get the name of some kid I used to know?"

"No," Minhyuk said, "finding out your boyfriend's name was just a side quest. I threw the party because I thought it would be fun and I didn't tell you because I knew you'd say no if I asked."

"Yes! You're right! I would have said no!"

"Right, so I didn't ask." Minhyuk sipped delicately at his drink, red plastic cup sloshing heavily in his hand. "I don't get what's so hard for you to understand here, Ki."

"This isn't my house," Kihyun hissed, pulling Minhyuk into the small bathroom next to the entryway. He shoved the door closed behind him and— Christ— the bass of the music was still so loud the lid of the toilet rattled gently with each resounding thump. "Okay? I live here and my name is on the lease but it doesn't belong to me, it's my great-aunt's beach house that she hasn't been to since, since whenever, but if my family finds out—"

"Don't worry," Minhyuk cooed, patting him on the face. "I told everyone not to break anything."

Kihyun took a moment to himself. To take a breath. In, out. In, out. To close his eyes and think of a leaf floating gently, effortlessly on the crystal clear, mirror-reflective surface of a perfectly peaceful lake. He could be that leaf. He could be that lake. It was within his grasp. All he had to do was the right thing.

“I’m going to kill you,” Kihyun said, slowly and calmly. “I will skin you and then I will use your fuckboy hide to make a leather backpack.”

“Nah. I could take you down,” Minhyuk replied, and reached past him to pull the bathroom door open again. He nudged Kihyun out the door with his very slightly larger frame. “That boy you like is out there somewhere. Don’t you wanna go tell him you know his name?”

“Not really,” Kihyun heard himself say. “Listen, this— we’re not done here!”

“Aren’t we, though?” Minhyuk kissed his hand and patted the affection onto Kihyun’s face, like powder onto Marie Antoinette. “Go get a drink. Relax a little.”

“You said you were sick.”

“I say a lot of things.”

“I found the tea,” Kihyun said, laying down his trump card, “and I’m going to make you drink it.”

All the blood drained out of Minhyuk’s face and he looked almost as corpse-white as his cheap costume makeup was trying to be. “It doesn’t exist,” he said hoarsely. “I checked. It doesn’t exist.”

“It does, I bought it, and not only will you be paying me back for it I will also see you drink a whole cup of it in front of me.”

“That’s cruel and unusual.”

“So are you,” Kihyun countered, shoving Minhyuk against the wall to get by. “The punishment fits the criminal.”

He didn’t want to know the Kid’s name. (It was Changkyun.) If he knew the Kid’s name, (Changkyun), then the Kid (Changkyun) would stop calling him Sir. He was going to find out all by himself, like a puzzle, like finding the angel in the marble, and Minhyuk had just— he’d just _told_ him. Like it was nothing.

It _was_ nothing. It was nothing!

He walked by the living room. He turned around. He went into the living room. “We are colleagues,” he said, hurt and betrayed beyond belief. “Why didn’t you tell me there was going to be a halloween party at my actual goddamn house?”

“I thought you knew,” Hyungwon replied from Kihyun’s couch, probably, but his voice was muffled by his girlfriend. “I mean, like, it stands to reason.”

His girlfriend leaned against him, giving Kihyun a coy, sideways look. “You didn’t know?”

“No, Wonhee. I didn’t know. What do you mean you thought I knew?”

“It stands to reason,” Hyungwon repeated.

“If he’d known it wouldn’t be happening,” Wonhee said, patting Hyungwon kindly on the face. She crossed her legs demurely at the ankle and flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Don’t worry, Minhyuk told everyone not to break anything.”

“Yeah,” Kihyun said darkly, “I heard about that.”

He left, left the living room and went to the kitchen to get a drink and a shred of self-respect. What he found instead was Changkyun. You know, Changkyun. The Kid.

He was sitting backwards on one of the chairs set around the kitchen table, cheek pillowed on his forearms laid over the back, and his eyes were closed. He looked— he looked innocent is what he looked, and that clashed so significantly with the state of Kihyun’s thighs that it was hard to think, especially over the growing hum in his head.

Minhyuk would have to drink two cups of green tea with cucumber. And he’d have to smile the whole time.

One of Changkyun’s eyes opened. “Hey,” he said, rolling his head upright. “Wondered why I didn’t see you, Sir.”

“Minhyuk didn’t tell me he was throwing a party at my house.” Tell him you know his name. It’s stupid to keep this up. “What are you doing in here, Kid? Party get too loud for you?”

Changkyun laughed— he giggled, really, low voice creaky and delighted— and lolled his head over to the other side. “Cute,” he sighed. “I’m so innocent to you.” He rested his chin on his wrists. “I’m drunk, Sir. I’m super-duper drunk. Stumbling—” He hiccuped. “—Stumbling drunk.”

“You’re 19,” Kihyun said. Out of all the things he could have said, and he said that one. “You’re not old enough to be super-duper drunk.”

“I’m a baby,” Changkyun replied. “Babies are irresponsible.”

“You’re not a baby.”

Changkyun leaned forward just a little bit more, eyelids heavy enough that his lower and upper eyelashes threaded together. He looked sleepy, warm, flushed with alcohol. He looked like he fit in that chair, at that table, in this kitchen. He looked like brown sugar. “You sure about that, Sir?”

Tell him. Tell him you know his name. Don’t be stupid, this isn’t a _game_ , why are you being so—

“Let’s get you to bed,” Kihyun said, and when he spoke his voice wasn’t strangled at all.

The worst part wasn’t that Changkyun’s halloween costume was a soft flannel wolf onesie, even though that was pretty terrible. It wasn’t that the zipper of the onesie had dipped down low enough that there was no question about whether or not Changkyun had a shirt on underneath. It wasn’t the way Changkyun leaned on him as they left the kitchen, his hot breath against Kihyun’s neck.

Minhyuk met them halfway to the stairs. “Uh oh,” he said, disingenuously surprised. “Looks like there’s only one bed! Whatever are we to do?”

“Move,” Kihyun said. Changkyun was very warm and very soft and kind of heavy, actually, so holding him up was distracting. “There are three guest bedrooms upstairs.”

There was a thump from overhead, and Kihyun and Minhyuk looked up at the same time. “They’re occupied,” Minhyuk said. “Holy shit, dude, I told everybody that your room is off limits— Ki for real it’s hard to breathe—”

“Don’t be dramatic, I’m not even wrinkling your shirt. What the hell do you mean, ‘occupied’?”

“Halloween sex,” Minhyuk replied. He said it slowly, carefully, like explaining the concept of water being wet to a seven year old child who should really know this by now. “I’m taking care of the laundry,” he added quickly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“So where am I supposed to put him?”

Changkyun wasn’t technically snoring, but he was breathing in the pattern of the deeply, drunkenly asleep. Kihyun forgot where he was for a second, what he was doing, until he said, “What?” because Minhyuk had been saying something.

“I said you can just put him in your room,” Minhyuk said, then stepped in close to mumble, “You’re welcome,” in his ear before dancing back again. “Knock yourselves out, boys.”

“I’m not going to put him in my room,” Kihyun yelled after him.

“... Come on,” Kihyun said to Changkyun, quiet, embarrassed. “My room’s just over here past the laundry.”

Changkyun was already sitting at the foot of Kihyun’s bed by the time the second to worst part happened, which was when he opened his mouth and said: “Wow. Now I’m the drunk one and you’re the one taking _me_ to bed.” He laughed. “I’m quieter than you, though. You made such a racket, I thought somebody was gonna come over to see what was going on.”

“I don’t remember what happened,” Kihyun said.

“It was cute,” Changkyun said, and then voiced the absolute worst part of Kihyun’s entire evening: “You found a big driftwood log that was shaped like the back of a horse, right? and you said you were going to show me proper riding etiquette, but you kept forgetting what you were saying so you just kept starting over from the beginning, right? and obviously logs don’t have stirrups.” He hiccuped again. “I’m amazed you didn’t have a ton of weird bruises.”

“Yeah,” Kihyun said, the bottom dropping out of what he thought had been reality. “Yeah, amazing. Wow. Yeah. I did, actually.”

There was the span of about four horribly silent seconds before the cloud of confusion passed from Changkyun’s face to make way for the brilliant sunshine of gleeful understanding. “You thought I sucked your dick.”

“No,” Kihyun said. “I didn’t know if— I forgot what happened, I wasn’t sure what happened. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Changkyun shifted a little bit closer, scooting to the edge of the mattress. He was wearing mismatched socks, and as he leaned forward Kihyun could see all the way down the inside of his onesie to just past his belly button. “D’you want me to?” he murmured. “I’m really, really good at it.”

He absolutely wanted to say no. He could feel the fear in his throat, big, sharp, he could almost taste how badly he wanted to say no, but for the first time he could remember for years and years the urge to say _yes_ was just big enough to overpower it.

_Don’t_ , Kihyun said to himself. _Don’t do this. Don’t put yourself through this._

Out loud, Kihyun said, "Yeah."

“Cool,” Changkyun said, hooking his forefingers into the belt loops of Kihyun’s jeans and tugging him in close.

It took a surprisingly small amount of time for Kihyun to discover that he had in fact thought that Changkyun was way more innocent than he actually was. Kihyun’s belt was barely an obstacle, the button Changkyun opened easily with one hand, the zipper not so much pulled down as shifted. Changkyun slipped his hands under Kihyun’s jeans, under the waistband of his underwear, and yanked them down past his ass. His breath caught distractedly in the back of his throat for a second, and then he glanced up and smiled. “You look good, Sir.”

“Okay,” said Kihyun.

He’d imagined what it must have been like to leave the kind of bruises he’d woken up with, and it hadn’t seemed like very much fun at all. Of course what he’d imagined hadn’t been what actually happened, which occurred to him at about the same time that Changkyun opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue (like he was trying to catch snowflakes, like he was waiting his turn to taste something) and licked a long slow wet stripe up the underside of his dick.

Kihyun didn’t have a lot of experience so his idea of quality was somewhere along the lines of No Teeth but Changkyun went down a checklist of perfect movements that Kihyun had never experienced and completed each task with a flourish. This had never happened before, not like this. Nobody had ever moved his hand to the back of their head like this, nobody had ever shown this much eagerness. Changkyun hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was really, really good at sucking dick.

He’d watched a lot of movies and he knew how things were supposed to go and he was pretty sure this was backwards. The relationship had ended before it even started; there was no getting to know each other period so much as just a few scattered moments of playing catch up; they were one another’s oldest friends and newest acquaintances at the same time; he had never once gotten a blowjob without having to ask, and that alone was cause for alarm.

When Kihyun came he bit his tongue, half to keep himself quiet and half as a natural consequence of orgasming so hard his toes curled.

 

* * *

 

Kihyun woke up to the sun shining in his window. This was very confusing and he had to think about it for a little while, but that was all right because it was taking him a really long time to pry his eyelids open all the way so he had time to run through his memories of the night before with growing horror.

He sat up, and the clock said it was past 10 in the morning, and the bed was all messed up, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt or jeans, and everything, he was pretty sure, was absolutely terrible.

“Wakey wakey,” Minhyuk sang, opening Kihyun’s bedroom door and leaning over the threshold with a bright, peppy expression that didn’t belong on anyone before 3pm at the earliest. “How’s my little strong man doing this morning? Did he get his dick wet last night?”

“That’s a really gross way of saying that,” Kihyun mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Minhyuk said triumphantly. Then he looked Kihyun in the face and the triumph turned effervescent. “Oh my god. You _did_.”

He could deny it. He could deny it, sitting in a messed up bed in just his underwear (and only one sock, he noted distantly), and Minhyuk wouldn’t have any proof. He could deny it. He could lie.

He always lied. He was too tired this time.

“Yeah,” Kihyun said, not lying even a little bit. (It felt a little terrifying, like being naked in front of a crowd.) “Yeah, I did. Changkyun sucked my dick and it was fucking amazing.”

Minhyuk rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, you don’t have to be sarcastic about it,” he said, and left, closing the door behind him.


End file.
